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The music of Bandish Bandits on Amazon Prime Video: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy go all out in a magnificent East-meets-West soundtrack
Over the years, our film music has become increasingly Western. But listening to the stunningly classical “Garaj Garaj”, you wonder: Is OTT poised to change the OST? Here’s the description for Bandish Bandits on the Amazon Prime Video site: “Radhe a singing prodigy from a classical background & Tamanna, a pop sensation on the rise […]
#AskBR – AR Rahman
July 31, 2020
In which I answer a few questions on an older film… or a new one… or talk about actors and directors… or take on a few YouTube comments… For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Dil Bechara
July 15, 2020
Saroj Khan: Breaking down the choreography that created hits for Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit
July 9, 2020
Like in our classical dance, the idea was to create a “movement” or a “step” that illustrated the lyric. This is the tradition Saroj Khan inherited, and she ran with it. It’s no accident that Saroj Khan’s best-known dance choreography came in the Sridevi-Madhuri Dixit era. Indian mainstream cinema was still “Indian”, and not “Westernised”. […]
Hemant Kumar: On his birth centenary, a musical flashback
June 16, 2020
Recalling some of the composer-singer’s music, from the sombre Guru Dutt films to Girl Friend, which had ‘Boom booma boom’. When it comes to films, we may admire the choices an actor makes, but there’s always a doubt: Is this great bit of dialogue delivery the actor’s own choice, or did the director prompt him […]
The unshackling of Tamil film music from the Carnatic idiom happened long before Ilaiyaraaja (addenda)
June 12, 2020
The unshackling of Tamil film music from the Carnatic idiom happened long before Ilaiyaraaja
June 8, 2020
The maestro is a talent that comes along once in the bluest of moons. My point is simply that his genius doesn’t need the negation of everyone who came before him. June 2 came and went. And with the day, Ilaiyaraja’s birthday, a hundred tribute pieces came and went into the Internet’s memory. If someone […]
Readers Write In #197: Vishal-Shekhar & Siddharth Anand – A combination that doesn’t get talked about much
May 30, 2020
(by Raghav Ravichandran) For somebody like me whose understanding of Hindi and generally the foray into Bollywood music happened in the early 2000’s there is one music composer duo, Vishal-Shekhar who have played a significant role in ensuring I became a big admirer of Bollywood Music and started following almost each Hindi album especially from […]
Readers Write In #165: Beating lockdown blues through Bollywood Music
May 2, 2020
(by Raghav Ravichandran) This period of lockdown is a great time for people to rekindle lost hobbies, get back to doing something they wanted to do or just use this time to slow down and just use this time to strengthen the bond with family or friends which was lost for some reason or the […]
Masakali 2.0: AR Rahman is understandably annoyed, but remakes aren’t going away anytime soon
April 9, 2020
A remix itself isn’t a sin. Sometimes, it’s about a vision, about how you see the original song. But this Tanishk Bagchi version is just pointless. A little after T-Series dropped ‘Masakali 2.0’, the world found itself considering a new adjective to describe AR Rahman: “angry”. The Sufi saint of Indian film music took to […]
AR Rahman’s 99 Songs is easier to admire than love, but there’s a LOT to admire…
April 2, 2020
This isn’t just a movie’s soundtrack album. It’s a ‘concept album’, like the whoppers that major rock bands used to make when music was more than just something you listened to while doing the dishes. Spoilers ahead… Just how many AR Rahmans are there? For starters, there’s the AR Rahman who’s been at the top […]
Readers Write In #111: “Pal pal har pal” from Lage raho Munnabhai is The definitive Hindi film song
November 13, 2019
(by Ankit Sinha) Cinema, plot and time, and why I think “Pal pal har pal” from Lage raho Munnabhai is The definitive Hindi film song “Pal pal..” is not just a great example of how to place film songs well in a narrative, but it can serve as the very image of the concept of […]
Happy 90th birthday, Lata Mangeshkar!
September 28, 2019
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/happy-90th-birthday-lata-mangeshkar/ The singer’s greatness is taken for granted (and rightly so), but is the “Lata era” still a thing? Or is it just for older listeners and nostalgists? Hema Mangeshkar. After 90 years, the name doesn’t just sound off, it sounds wrong, like calling a rainbow a […]
Readers Write In #93: 27 years of Rahman
August 27, 2019
(by Nirupama V) A.R Rahman’s music has always been a part of my life. I have an old CD that contains the video songs of Baba from when I was 4 years old that used to be played on our old Philips VCD player that doubled as a tape recorder. I vividly remember falling in […]
The contentious nature of the National Awards
April 14, 2018
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/the-contentious-nature-of-the-national-awards-baahubali-village-rockstars-sridevi/ Musings on the country’s most prestigious film awards – and this is not about whether X deserved to win over Y. Another year. Another set of arguments over the National Awards. For instance: Did Sridevi deserve Best Actress? Indeed, under normal circumstances, would her performance in […]
On being home-schooled in Tamil through the film song
March 15, 2018
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/southern-lights-home-schooled-tamil-film-song/ Paying attention to lyrics is a wonderful way to increase one’s proficiency in a language. (Added incentive: It’s fun too.) These days, a lot of the music I listen to comes from the phone. I just type in the name of a song I feel like listening […]
Ten from the heart
February 14, 2018
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/baradwaj-rangans-love-song-list-ten-heart/ In which I use a hi-tech method (okay, not so much) to come up with a list of love songs for Valentine’s Day.. Being asked to make a list (of songs, of films) for an occasion is one of the more nerve-wracking aspects of pop-culture writing. […]
Reviewing (and re-viewing) Rahman
November 2, 2017
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/article/southern-lights-reviewing-and-re-viewing-rahman Thoughts on the ‘2.0’ soundtrack and its composer, who keeps going on and on and on. What makes AR Rahman tick? That’s the question I had while listening to the composer’s soundtrack for Shankar’s 2.0. This isn’t about how he manages to keep making music, 25 […]
A brief chat with AR Rahman…
March 14, 2017
This was done when AR Rahman was in town to release the music of ‘Lake of Fire’. We didn’t get much time with him, but we did get to tour his school. My favourite part of this experience is also least “professional” aspect. We barely got any time to set up, and I used a lapel […]
The A.R. Rahman fan club
March 5, 2017
livemint spoke to me about 25 years of Rahman, and a small portion of that chat has been reproduced in their latest weekend issue. Link:
August 3, 2020
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